


Bridges

by skyxsoup



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Death, Depression, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Loneliness, Love, M/M, Memories, Oneshot, Reincarnation, Sad, Suicide, okay super sad, starbucks kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:53:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2558723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyxsoup/pseuds/skyxsoup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When I first met Eren Jaeger, he was loud, brash and possibly the most irritating person I had ever met. </p><p>Yet, for some reason or another, he ended up becoming my closest friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bridges

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and Thank you for reading! 
> 
> This is a short drabble I came up with a little while ago and am posting now ^^"
> 
> I actually meant to post a bit after I originally wrote it but then totally forgot and only recently found it again (which I'm happy about because it gave me something more to procratinate with! yay) I really wanted to work with a more serious theme when writing this, and hope I did it justice. It was very fun working on this.
> 
> Please comment or leave kudos if you enjoyed! It is much appreciated. Thank you~!

When I first met Eren Jaeger, he was loud, brash and possibly the most irritating person I had ever met.

Yet, for some reason or another, he ended up becoming my closest friend.

We met during our first week of college. I remember it as if it were yesterday. We were freshman at the time, just adjusting to the new student lifestyle. I was heading back to my dorm, arms full of books when we ended up physically knocking into each other outside and everything scattered to the ground.

He cursed immediately, picking up all the shit we both dropped when he looked up, and I was faced with most vibrant blue-green eyes I had ever seen. I remember being mesmerized by him, forgetting all the violent words sitting at the edge of my tongue, when he spoke, his voice startled.

“Jean?”

I remember replying confused, asking who he was, and how he knew my name. His expression after that is what got to me; shock, hurt, possibly betrayal. I got the sudden feeling like those emotions were wrong. He shouldn't have that expression on his face, although I didn't know why.

He apologized, mumbling how he had mistaken me for someone else.

I didn’t know how to respond.

I honestly couldn’t remember meeting him before, but feeling bad, and not entirely wanting him to just disappear after that, I offered to treat him to some starbucks - since he did happen to drop his after he bumped into me. He seemed to light up at that and we exchanged names and numbers so we could meet there that night. And almost instantly we grew attached to each other and became close friends.

Only later on did I found out how he had known me, claiming some… slightly crazy idea to have spent a previous life together as friends during a time of war.

He was afraid I would leave if he told me right away, that I would think he was crazy, or even worse, that he would truly start believing he _was_ crazy. But the visions were so vivid that they would even wake him, drenched in sweat, from a sound sleep. That’s when he finally told me, a month after we had moved in together, and I decided to try and at least listen to what he had to say.

At first he was afraid to speak to much about it. Of these terrifying visions about us. Or “memories” as he called them. Memories of monsters and death, of friends, comrades, betrayal. Of our Missions. But the further our friendship dragged on, the more he brought it up, trying to provoke a reaction out of me - desperate to try and get me to understand.

I never once could say I believed him. Not until now. Not until the moment I saw them drag his lifeless corpse out from underneath the bridge.

I saw it when they pulled his body up, in tatters. The way his t-shirt, blood soaked, hit his pale skin in scrapes. I saw it in the messy brown hair, sheeted and wet on his pale face. In the now lifeless blue-green eyes of his I had just seen hours before.

I had never known what drove me to him. I always just assumed it was a chance meeting, bumping into each other like that, finding out we had a bunch of similar interests. Normal shit like that. Now I know it was much more.

So much more.

It hit me now. It wasn't just chance. We had known each other before. In a past life. Far, far away from the safety that is - was - our current world. And he had known it. He knew - saw - everything. In dreams, in visions, in our everyday life. And it drove him crazy.

He clung to it, desperately needing that someone who could confide in it with him, to prove he wasn't insane. That he wasn’t losing his mind.

But there was no Mikasa, no Armin or Annie, Connie or Sasha. Not even I, who was by his side - who was _there_ with him, was able to give that to him. He was all alone, with me just enhancing the emptiness in the background, slowly causing his mind to cave in.

As they settled him onto a stretcher, zipping him into a black bag while I stood across from him in numb shock, my phone still open from his last message to me, I could see it.

There was a battlefield, in a time long erased from Earth’s history. A place with so much bloodshed.

Collapsed buildings were scattered about. Death everywhere. And Eren, covered in blood.

It was hazy, as if I had just hit my head. Everything was swimming around me in the vision. There was rubble everywhere around us, and warm blood dripped down my face. I could hear someone scream in the distance, a sound that made my blood boil, until I realized it was me, or whoever I was back then, screaming to Eren. It was me. I was screaming his name, coupled with cursing as I tried to crawl, to reach out for Eren, but it felt like I was stuck.

Then I saw the titans.

Never have I seen anything more terrifying. Their feet shook the ground as they walked, the air vibrating with each step and sending chills down your spine.

They looked like distorted humans, ranging from a couple meters tall to as large as the buildings around us. They were naked, but they had no reproductive organs, and their legs and arms looked almost shriveled compared to their enormous torsos. And the only place they had hair was on their heads. The rest was a tight, veined skin with clouds of steam rising from it’s abnormal heat.

There were so many.

I remember them trying to pick me up, the broken sword in my hand only making them angrier as I tried to keep them away.

I screamed his name louder when they had succeeded.

And louder and louder as they dug for him, picking up his limp body from underneath the slabs of the broken stone house behind us. The amount of blood on him made my voice crack.

He had to wake up. He had to live. I had to make sure he lived.

But I lost too much blood, so much that I could feel my head spinning. I tried to fight it, tried to stay awake, but the pressure of their fists was too much. I couldn't register anything anymore. I couldn't even scream. I couldn’t breathe.

And I couldn't see. I couldn’t see Eren one last time, couldn’t wake him up - save him - before I, too, blacked out.

***

Everything came back to me in those few split seconds. Memories of everything Eren always spoke of.

My head was pulsing, pain stinging throughout it, and I found It even harder to breathe.

I now understood what Eren had felt. Like him, I was now alone in this world. Safe, secure, but alone. Completely alone. I felt the emptiness he had rush inside me. The feelings of a past life shading over everything the new one held and pain erupted, growing with the doubled loss of my best friend.

I couldn't be there for him. I couldn't protect him. He was gone. I failed again and now he was gone for good. I felt the first few tears finally drip past the initial shock, my insides starting to grow hysteric. Before I knew it I had to be held back, police officers grabbing my arms as I struggled to get to him, screams of his name echoing the ones from my past life.

Allthewhile Eren's last text message glowed on the screen in my hand.

 

         "Jean, I hope you'll forgive me someday for this.  
For what I'm about to do. But I can’t back out anymore.  
  
I’m at a bridge actually. It’s so strange, looking down and all.

You know, the day we met, I had actually planned to take my life.   
But after we crossed paths I couldn’t.

I couldn’t say goodbye to you just yet. I couldn’t let go.

Not when I thought I could be with you again, even if just for a few years.

\- But I have to now. The pain is too much. The memories, the loss, all of it.

That’s why, even if you can’t understand, I hope you’ll forgive me.  
Forgive me for being selfish. For leaving you. For giving up.

Just… please believe me when I say none of this is your fault.  
Even if you didn’t remember. Even if you never do, never once think I ever blamed you.  
And never try to blame yourself.

It was inevitable. If not the day we met, then now.

There is something I have to tell you before I go though,   
and I'm a real dick for waiting until now, but,

I love you.

I’m in love with you.

I have been, since long before this life, and I always will.

 

                        - Forever yours, Eren”

 

 

 

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_**Eren Jaeger: 18 new voicemail messages** _

_“EREN WAIT!_

_DAMMIT, ANSWER YOUR PHONE EREN-_

_DON’T JUMP. I SWEAR TO GOD PLEASE DONT JUMP_

_I LOVE YOU TOO DAMNIT SO DONT JUMP”_

_PLEASE…. Please… dont leave me-”_


End file.
